Plant for the treatment of rolled wire from the roll heat



Jan. 20, 1970 o, DOPPER ET AL PLANT FOR THE TREATMENT OF ROLLED WIRE FROM THE ROLL HEAT Filed Oct; 31, 196'? 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 c fIL .v vY mf OY Nvu@ Q mmv N Y www .1301.201970 .DQPPRET'AL 0,490,500.

PLANT FOR THE TRTMENT @P ROLLED WIRE FROMTH'ROLL HEAT Filed oct. 31, 1967 2 sheets-sheet a United States Patent O U.S. Cl. 140-1 5 Claims ABSTRACT F THE DISCLOSURE Plant for the treatment of rolled Wire from the roll heat, more particularly for the production of patented steel wire, comprising a rotating-tube reel, preceded by -a Wire-feeding device provided with means for cooling the wire with water, and followed by a coil-collecting station, the coil-collecting station consisting of two coilcollecting appliances adapted to be connected alternatively to the rotating-tube reel, one of them being equipped for bath patenting and the other for air patenting. The plant may include a wire-turn conveying device swivelling about a pivot located beneath or behind the rotating-tube reel; or the coil-collecting appliance for air patenting may be arranged immediately beneath or behind the rotating-tube reel, Whilst the coil-collecting appliance for bath patenting is connected with the rotating-tube reel by a wire-turn conveying device which can be slewed about a swivel axis located in front of the coil-collecting appliance.

This invention relates to an adjusting plant for the treatment of rolled wire from the roll heat, which can be used over the entire rolling range of a mill train for wire from 5 to about 14 mm. in diameter, and in which a rotatingtube reel is preceded by a wire-feeding device provided with means for Water-cooling the wire, and is followed by a coil-collecting station. The invention relates more particularly to those plants in which the transformation of the texture of the steel wire from austenite to ferrite and pearlite, or even to sorbite, is preferably effected in the coil.

The requirements stipulated by the rolled-wire treatment industry to the wire-rolling mill as regards final diameter, composition of material, texture, and quantity and composition of scale, as well as length of wire or weights of coils, and Wire tolerances, are very many-sided, and frequently lie extremely far'apart. The greater part of the wire production consists of qualities poor in carbon (below about 0.3 C.). With these there are practically no stipulations as regards texture. Quantity of scale, constitution of scale, weights of coils and wire tolerances are the important points for the value of the rolled product. In this case, as a rule, in order to have lower treatment costs, a small final diameter is desired.

The second largest portion of the wire production is steel wire above about 0.3 C., which is drawn to end cross sections at which patented rolled wires fundamentally admit of being drawn. Since, however, with the end cross section, quite a definite and tolerated ultimate strength, and other mechanical properties, are at the same time desired, but these are obtainable only in co-operation with, in particular, initial diameter, or drawing reduction, composition of material, and, it may be, patentability, these operations, requisite for the purpose, have hitherto been effected, almost exclusively, in the wire-treating industry. It is for this reason that in this case likewise no special requirements as regards texture and patenting strength are stipulated for rolled wire of more than 0.3 C. As a 3,490,500 Patented Jan. 20, 1970 rule, these wires are drawn to a preliminary cross section, patented, and only then drawn to the finished diameter, with the desired properties. In this case, in order to keep the cost of drawing as low as possible, the smallest possible rolling cross sections are selected.

It Would indeed be desirable, with the aforementioned wire production, to save the one patenting in the wiredrawing works. This however involves being able to produce a rolled wire of sorbitic texture, and with quite definite patenting strengths, even in the case of the larger diameters, so that these rolled wires, without any supplementary patenting, can be drawn with reductions of cross section up to percent, to the desired final diameter, in combination with the likewise desired ultimate strengths. Since this is possible, the production of patented steel wire of diameters thicker than 5.5 mm. is increasingly gaining in importance, so as to be able to select the rolled wire with the greatest optimum initial diameter with which the ultimate diameter is attainable in one drawing operation without interposed patenting. In the aforementioned manner, pre-stressed concrete Wires for instance can advantageously be produced. Moreover this method of working brings the advantage that owing to the limited speed of uncoiling, the speed of drawing, and therefore the output or eiiiciency of production, can be increased by employing rolled wire of thicker initial diameters, and that on the other hand the deviations in thickness, with thick initial diameters, prove substantially smaller upon a change in the ultimate strength, than with thinner initial diameters. Also the production of thicker cross sections in the wire mill is more advantageous, because the cost of treatment is less, and higher production is attained.

The remainder, only a small portion, of the production of rolled wire, is steel wire above about 0.3 C., which is drawn to such small iinal cross sections that to enable the required initial cross section to be obtained, reductions of the rolled wire are required, which, if it is desired to save one patenting in the drawing works, justify a patenting from the roll heat. This wire is to have not only a small rolled cross section and good tolerance, but also uniform patenting texture throughout its length.

Upon the known plants for the production of patented steel wire from the roll heat all these requirements only admit of being fulfilled to a limited extent, or only with great constructional expenditure and high operating costs. The object of the present invention is therefore to provide a plant for the production of patented steel Wire from the roll heat with which the production of the rolled wire can be adapted to the particular requirements of the rolled-Wire-treatment industry with the smallest possible constructional expenditure and low operating costs.

According to the invention this aim is attained by the feature that the coil-collecting station consists of two coilcollecting appliances capable of being alternatively connected With the rotating-tube reel, one of them being equipped on the lines of salt-patenting, and the other on the lines of patenting with cooling in air.

The feeding of the turns of wire leaving the rotatingtube reel into the particular coil-collecting appliance that is preferred may be effected in a simple manner, according to a further feature of the invention, by arranging, beyond the rotating-tube reel, a slewing wire-tum conveyor known in itself, the pivotal axis of which is located beneath or behind the rotating-tube reel, and allocating one of the coil-collecting appliances to each of the two end positions thereof. The use of a wire-turn conveying device, which may be constructed either as a conveyor belt or as a conveying roller bed for the transport of a series of overlapping turns of Wire, or else as a conveying chain for the transport of suspended turns of wire, presents, besides the provision of a sufficiently great distance between the rotating-tube reel and the salt bath for the protection of the rotating-tube reel from the ascending hot salt vapours, also the further advantage that the rolled wire, transported upon the conveying device in individualised turns, can be subjected to air cooling all the way to the deposition in the coil-collecting appliance.

In this case the effectiveness of the air cooling admits of being still further considerably enhanced if the Wireturn conveying device is connected in a known manner with an air-blast or air-suction appliance. A portion of the requisite preparatory air cooling of the rolled Wire can he transferred from the wire-feeding device to the wire-turn conveying device, which, in the production of air-patented thin steel wire, is advantageous when this is to be cooled down as quickly as possible to a temperature of about 600 to 700 C., in order that the structural transformation may result in as much laminated pearlite as possible.

In salt-patenting, on the other hand, it is advisable to effect the preliminary cooling of the rolled wire as far as possible, without employing water cooling, only on the tanned-out turns of wire by means of an air blast, because the very sharply acting water cooling, with particularly high requirements as regards wire texture, is associated with considerable disadvantages. Thus with high water pressure, injurious flakes of martensite may be formed upon the outer skin of the wire, or the wire may acquire a texture which varies along its length, because as a rule, for the purpose of obviating disturbances of the reel, the water cooling is not switched on until the tip of the wire has already lpassed through. On the other hand, the attainable preliminary cooling temperature is considerably influenced by uctuations in the temperature and pressure of the water, and by the roughness of the surface of the Wire. On these grounds it is advisable, in the production of salt-patented steel wire, either to avoid water cooling entirely, or to bring it in only for the purpose of assisting the preliminary cooling in the case of thick wire cross sections.

With salt-bath patenting it may also be advisable to avoid any preliminary cooling by water or air, and to keep the wire at high temperatures for a suiicient length of time to lbring about a growth of grain (or crystal). This aim also is easy to attain with the apparatus according to the invention, in that the delivery of the turns of wire is eected very slowly, so that the Wire deposited is massed upon the wire-turn conveying device, and therefore cools only very slowly. The wire-turn conveying device m-ay here by covered with a casing, which arrests or hinders the cooling of the wire, and also, if it is iilled with a neutral gas, the scaling of the wire, during the transportation to the coil-collecting appliance.

Another advantageous development of the invention resides in the feature that the coil-collecting appliance, developed on the lines of air patenting, is arranged immediately beneath or behind the rotating-tube reel, whilst the coil-collecting appliance developed on the lines of salt patenting is connectible to the rotating-tube rcel by w-ay of a wire-turn conveying device which can be swung in and out about a pivotal axis located before this coil-collecting appliance, in the region of the turns of wire leaving the rotating-tube reel.

Two embodiments of the invention are diagrammatically illustrated by way of example in the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 shows one constructional example in side elevation, partly in section, with the conveyor belt rocked in for the salt patenting of the steel wire; y

FIGURE 2 is a plan view of the same constructional example, with the conveyor belt rocked in for the air patenting;

FIGURE 3 shows a further constructional example in side elevation partly in section, with the conveyor belt rocked in for salt patenting; and

FIGURE 4 is a plan view of the same constructional example as FIGURE 3, with the conveyor belt rocked out for air patenting.

In the plant illustrated in FIGURES 1 and 2, the rolled wire coming from a roll stand 1 runs through a wirefeeding device 2, in which the wire can be cooled by means of water, the intensity of the cooling being variable by varying the pressure of the Water. The Wire is then deposited by a rotating-tube reel 3, which in the present case is constructed with a rotating tube 4 revolving about a horizontal axis, by means of a tripping edge 5 arranged Ibeyond the rotating tube 4 and laying over the turns 0f wire that have been formed, in non-concentric overlapping turns, upon a conveyor belt 8, Which is so arranged as to swivel horizontally about a pivot 9 larranged beyond the rotating-tube 3. When employing a rotating-tube reel 3 with its rotary tube 4 rotating about a vertical axis, the pivot 9 of the conveyor belt 8 will be located exactly underneath the rotating-tube reel 3l.

By way of the conveyor belt 8 the turns of wire pass selectively either into a coil-collecting appliance 6, in which the descending turns of wire are collected into a coil of wire in the salt bath, or else into a coil-collecting appliance 7, in which the 'collected turnsy of wire may be cooled slowly, in air at rest, or with acceleration, in moving air, according to the purpose for which the wire is to be used. With both the coil-collecting appliances 6 and 7 it is advisable so to distri-bute the descending turns of wire, by means of one of the known appliances, that the overlapping turns of the coil of wire are set in a rosettelike form, which can be well reached on all sides both by the air and by the salt liquid.

The salt bath is located in an elongated container 10, which is provided with heating and cooling means, not shown, to maintain a definite temperature of the `salt bath constant. Over the bottom of the bath, in the longitudinal direction, Wimmler rods 11 are provided, for the accommodation of collecting baskets 15. These Wimmler rods are supportedA upon positively driven eccentric shafts 12 and 13 located outside the salt bath. The eccentricshaft drive, not shown, of the rods 11 is adjustable in such a way that the eccentric shafts 12 and 13 can execute both a continuous movement, for the removal 0f the illed collecting baskets' 15, and a to-and-fro `movement. By this latter movement the coils of wire forming upon the collecting baskets 15 can be reciprocated in the salt bath for the better delivery of heat to the salt bath, whilst at the same time facilitating the depositing of the descending turns of wire in staggered relationship to one another. I

The conveyor belt 8 is so dimensioned in its length that the rotating-tube reel 3 is located outside the range of the hot ascending salt vapours. Moreover the conveyor -belt 8 can also be used for the air cooling of the fannedout turns of wire, whereby the preliminary cooling of the rolled wire, which may be required before depositing it inthe coil-collecting appliances `6 and 7, admits of being distributed advantageously upon the wire-feeding device 2 and the conveyor belt 8. In this case it may in particular instances be advantageous, or, with especially high requirements as to the uniform formation of the texture of the wire it may even be requisite, substantially to dispense with the water cooling of the wire in the wirefeeding device 2. The eifectiveness of air cooling on the conveyor belt 8 may be furtherenhanced by an air-blast or air-suction appliance, not shown, in which case the supply or withdrawal of air may be eected through the hollow swivel pivot 9.

The conveyor belt 8 may if desired be covered with a casing 8a, which may be made thermally insulating, and

may be lled with neutral gas. The speed of transport of the conveyor belt 8 may be variable.

The plant illustrated in FIGURES 3 and 4 is distinguished from the plant described above by the fact that the coil-collecting appliance 7 serving for the air patenting of the rolled wire is arranged immediately underneath or behind the rotating-tube reel 3, according to Whether the latter is constructed with a rotary tube 4 rotating about a vertical axis or about a horizontal axis, whilst the coil-collecting appliance 6 serving for the salt patenting may be connected with the rotating-tube reel 3 by way of the conveyor belt 8, which is so mounted upon a pivotal axis 9 arranged before the coil-collecting appliance 6 as to be capable of swinging horizontally, and can be slewed in and out in the region of the turns of wire leaving the rotating-tube reel 3.

The method shown in FIGURES 3 and 4 of so arranging the collecting baskets upon a conveying device 14 that when removing a lled collecting basket 15 an empty one can at the same time be carried into the receiving position is applicable also in an analogous manner to the plant according to FIGURES 1 and 2, and is only to be regarded as an indication of the possibility of a completely continuous method of working of the coil-collecting appliances 6 and 7.

In contrast to the constructional examples illustrated in the drawing, the plant according to the invention may dispense with a rockable conveying device, and may be constructed in such a way that the rotating-tube reel is arranged either for slewing or for travelling, and the two coil-collecting appliances are each allocated to one working position of the rotating-tube reel. In this case, however, a sufficient protection of the rotating-tube reel against the hot salt vapours would have to be provided, and for the other ease, additional steps would have to be taken to enable the Wire-feeding device to be adapted to the particular working position of the rotating-tube reel.

The methods for the production of patented steel wire of any quality of texture are suiciently known from the literature, with respect to their cooling curves and the holding times at definite temperatures, so that they can be carried out with the plant according to the invention by suitable combination of water cooling, air cooling and salt-bath cooling in any desired manner. Instead of the salt bath, other suitable baths, for instance an eddycurrent bath, may be employed.

We claim:

1. Plant for the treatment of rolled wire from the roll heat, comprising: a rotating-tube reel, a wire-feeding device preceding the rotating-tube reel, means associated with the wire-feeding Adevice for cooling the rolled wire with water, and a coil-collecting station following the rotating-tube reel, the coil-collecting station including two coil-collecting appliances, one equipped for bath patenting and the other for air patenting, and means for connecting the rotating-tube reel with the two coil-collecting appliances alternatively.

2. Plant for the treatment of rolled wire as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a Wire-turn conveying device swivelling about an axis located underneath the rotating-tube reel.

3. Plant for the treatment of rolled wire as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a wire-turn conveying device swivelling about a vertical pivot located beyond the rotating-tube reel.

4. Plant for the treatment of rolled wire as claimed in claim 1, the coil-collecting appliance for air patenting being located immediately beneath the rotating-tube reel, and the plant further comprising a swivelling wire-turn conveying device connecting the rotating-tube reel with the coil-collecting device for bath patenting, the axis about which this wire-turn conveying device swivels being located in front of the associated coil-collecting appliance, in the neighbourhood of the turns of Wire leaving the rotating-tube reel.

5. Plant for the treatment of rolled wire as claimed in claim 1, the coil-collecting appliance for air patenting being located immediately behind the rotating-tube reel, and the plant further comprising a swivelling wire-turn conveying device connecting the rotating-tube reel with the coil-collecting device for bath patenting, the axis about which this wire-turn conveying device swivels being located in front of the associated coil-collecting appliance, in the neighbourhood of the turns of wire leaving the rotating-tube reel.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,516,248 7/1950 OBrien 148-155 CHARLES W. LANHAM, Primary Examiner L. A. LARSON, Assistant Examiner 

